Bless the beasts and the serial killers

I took my dog to a blessing of the animals yesterday in the parking lot of a local church. Naturally, if there were a blue ribbon awarded for the worst behaved pet, my dog would have won. Right when the priest was sprinkling her with holy water, Rosie squatted and took a power dump – her third that morning.

Tuesday is St. Francis of Assisi Day. It is also Rosh Shoshone and the first day of Ramadan. It’s going to be a messed up day but no more than usual.

The last time I went to an animal blessing ceremony was ten years ago. I took my old dog, Bijou. Bijou had one eye and weighed thirteen pounds. She smelled bad partly because she was incontinent toward the end of her life. If she had been human, she surely would have been a serial killer. She was a lot like having Aileen Wuornos for a dog. There were burrs in her beard and bugars clustered around her empty eye socket. She had no problem ripping your arm off if you tried touching her face.

A lot of my friends were afraid of her. Even gangbangers would cross the street when they saw little Bijou coming down the sidewalk. I lived in mostly bad neighborhoods in the city and she was the perfect dog for me to have at that time in my life. I’d walk her in the park and people would comment how she reminded them of Chuckie in “Child’s Play.” Then they’d run.

Bijou didn’t take shit from anybody. There was a crazy hillbilly lady that lived across the street from me in a studio apartment who owned five huskies. She eventually had to put one of her dogs to sleep because it assumed the alpha position in the pack and would attack the other dogs in her kitchen. One day this woman crossed the street with her wolf pack to say hello to the cute little doggie. Her dogs were straining their leashes to get at Bijou, when Bijou lunged at them. They yelped and ran away, dragging the crazy hillbilly lady behind them.

Another time when I was walking Bijou through a local cemetery she took off. I found her playing with a coyote. She was the ultimate ghetto dog. So I took her to this blessing of the animals. The ceremony was held inside a church. There must have been a hundred pets. All of them were well behaved. I staked out a pew. In the middle of the service, another dog came crawling beneath the pews. When it reached us, Bijou started beating the crap out of this dog in the middle of the church. The dog’s family was horrified and kids were screaming hysterically. They had to stop the ceremony so I could pull her off this other dog.

After the blessing, Bijou got into the communion bread and ate several large chunks of Our Lord Jesus Christ’s body. I thought the priest was going to shit in his pants. As far as I know, this particular church has never held another blessing of the animals. I think Bijou made them rethink the whole concept.

Bijou died in 2002 at the ripe old dog age of 15. Like Aileen Wuornos, I had Bijou put to sleep by lethal injection. During the last few years of Bijou's life she had kidney disease and I had to give her dialysis. I did it myself, but I had to find people to hold her down while I filled her up with 150 CCs of lactose ringers. My brother gave me some three-fingered asbestos gloves from work, the kind firemen wear. I would make people put them on for protection as I inserted the needle.

My friends quit coming around to my house because I would always hit them up to help me “stick the dog.” I remember talking my niece, who nine at the time, into holding Bijou down for five dollars. After I set her up with pillows and the gloves, I administered the IV. My niece decided she didn’t want the five dollars any more and started crying, “she’s biting the glove, she’s biting the glove.” Her parents weren’t too happy that I had assigned their daughter such a life-threatening task and quit asking me to babysit after that.

After Bijou died, I figured I had earned my stripes as a dedicated dog owner. I think everyone should own a defective dog or cat at least once in their life. I know some other people with a one-eyed dog that is just as crazy and neurotic as Bijou. I know enough to stay away from the dog’s blind side. But I’ll always be grateful to Bijou for the many years of protection she provided to me living in the ghetto.

I got myself a sweet dog now, but I have to admit it took some getting used to having a dog with two eyes again. I still rarely attend church, but I will go if there are animals.